Scott McNutt: Haslam pledges to be open about secrecy

On his first day as governor of Tennessee, Bill Haslam signed an executive order that requires the governor and top aides to be openly secretive about how much they earn in outside income.

Under the disclosure rules Haslam authorized, the governor and senior administration officials must reveal sources of outside income while being ostentatiously disdainful of revealing how much they earn from those sources.

Haslam signed two additional executive orders that day.

One prohibits discrimination in government hiring practices on the basis of race, gender, national origin, religion, age, political affiliation, disabilities or financial status.

The other establishes wealth sensitivity training in the executive branch so staffers will respect an administration official's right to financial privacy to avoid the conflicts of interest that sharing such knowledge could cause.

But the open secrets order has drawn the most attention in Haslam's first weeks in office.

That order states that "it is the unwavering policy of the Executive Branch to facilitate the right of Tennesseans to not be burdened with specific financial information with which they may hold members of the Executive Branch accountable. And it is the duty of members of the Executive Branch to deride efforts to expose such information, because it is unseemly for a wealthy man's fortune to be scrutinized."

"We intend to make ours the most openly secretive administration in Tennessee's history," Haslam proclaimed after signing the order. "Because a governor should keep some things openly secret. Take Lamar Alexander's plaid shirt - please. Couldn't he have just let it be known that he owned a plaid shirt and spared us all the indignity of seeing him in it? That's something that should have been openly secret. So we're completely open about the fact that we are keeping our incomes secret. It will make Tennessee's government more hospitable to the <0x00FC>ber-wealthy."

Friends and political observers suggested different motives for Haslam's decision.

"Family is the most important thing to Bill Haslam," said political analyst Phil Erstine. "Bill is doing this to protect his family from strained relations with distant, less-affluent cousins. If his cousins twice removed by worth knew how loaded he really was, those kvetching cousins would always be hitting the Haslams up for loans, which would make the entire family cross. And you don't cross the family."

An official who served in Haslam's Knoxville mayoral administration conjectured that Haslam's humility prompted the executive order.

"Gov. Haslam signed that order because he's so humble - he thinks it's wrong to show off his income," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "If his vast net worth were generally known, it would be difficult for him to exhibit the common touch with the not-nearly-so-net-worthy, and that would, of course, be uncomfortable for those poor souls. So he's hiding the full amount of his fortune to spare the people of Tennessee painful embarrassment."

"As a kid, Billy was morally outraged the first time he heard the Beatles' 'Do You Want to Know a Secret?'" recalled Guess. "He said, 'Whoa, man, heavy, that's a drag. I mean, what a bummer. It flips me out that somebody could fink out a secret like that. That cat's a British Benedict Arnold.' He was so incensed, I don't think he ever heard the lyrics past the first line. And he refused to ever again listen to another Lennon/McCartney song sung by George Harrison. Because that's what integrity meant to Billy Haslam."

But Haslam insisted he issued the order because of his dedication to public service.

"Based on my campaign experiences, Tennesseans don't want to be pestered with how many thousands of times more wealthy than them I am," he explained. "And our citizens have every right to not care about how much money I have. So as a service to the public, I am keeping it openly secret."